The increased popularity of fast-food establishments, coupled with the popularity of consumption of food and beverages on-the-go, have led to the need for more convenient takeout packaging.
Billions of disposable beverage cups are used every year. Often those cups are part of a larger meal, and current technology dictates placing a lid on the beverage cup, and packing the food in a separate and detached container. This may be satisfactory for a consumer seated at a table. However, when the consumer must eat on-the-go, use of the current technology is problematic. Consider, for example, a consumer who is drinking a beverage and would like to access a breakfast sandwich in a takeout bag. The consumer must set aside the beverage, and then use one hand to hold the bag and the other hand to access the sandwich, then set aside the bag and use both hands to open the sandwich packaging. In this example, current technology does not allow for convenient on-the-go consumption. Standard cup lids are simple covers that do not include an integrated container. Rather, known lids cover the contents of a cup which forms a closed container in combination with the cup itself.
To address some of these problems, yogurt manufacturers have placed a small food container on the lid of a yogurt cup. The food container (often holding nuts or granola) must be removed from the yogurt cup and then flipped over and opened, then the contents are poured into the yogurt cup. It is therefore not possible to simultaneously access the contents of the yogurt cup and the contents of the food container; rather, the food container must be completely disengaged from the cup to access either the contents of the yogurt cup or the contents of the food container. The food container that attaches to the yogurt cup in an upside-down position has a limited food-volume capacity because its walls taper as they proceed upward toward the bottom of the upside-down container. Without this tapering, the yogurt cup/food container complex would become top-heavy and cumbersome.
Other known devices having a container or shelf combined with a lid have limitations which makes these devices impractical to use. One category of devices includes a container combined with a cup, but utilizes a hole in the middle of the lid. This makes it impossible to store non-ring or non-annular items having no central hole, in the container, such as hamburgers, cookies or muffins, for example. Another category of devices includes a container combined with a lid, but does not allow for simultaneous access to the contents of the cup and the container, nor for the container to be resealed or a drop-in container to be removed from the container. Other devices that include drop-in functionality require removal of the container before accessing the contents of the cup. Other devices have relatively small peel containers for pills such as mints and are not suitable for larger food items. Another category of devices utilizes dividers in the cup with access on each side of the cup. No known devices have a non-permanent or male/female bottom oriented coupling system for coupling a container with the lid.
Also known in the art is a flask-type container with a small compartment for a pill or pills. This design is unsuitable for storage of and simultaneous access to larger volumes of beverages and more substantial snacks/food items such as would be consumed by a take-out customer, and does not have a shape compatible with armrest cup-holders.
Thus simultaneous or intermittent access to the contents of known cups and the contents of an attached container is not possible. This makes for difficult consumption of coffee, soda, snacks, popcorn, etc., in malls, fast food restaurants, theaters, amusement parks, sports stadiums or in any other venue. For example, this makes it difficult to eat and drink food in a theater or stadium with one cup-holder per seat.
For at least the limitations described above, there is a need for a cup lid with integrated container.